The Buzzhttp://www.rochester.edu/thebuzz
Who's buzzworthy at the University of Rochester?Mon, 16 May 2016 14:52:02 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1The Year in Pictures: Orientation to Graduationhttp://www.rochester.edu/thebuzz/2016/04/the-year-in-pictures-from-orientation-to-the-rockys/
Fri, 29 Apr 2016 14:05:50 +0000http://www.rochester.edu/thebuzz/?p=57102
By Joy Bian’17University Communications

The 2015-16 academic year was filled with celebration, frustration, laughter and tears, and plenty of success.
Let’s close The Buzz – for now – by looking back at some of the lasting memories on the River Campus.
Here are 20 photos that capture a fascinating year along the Genesee.
As that old song says, see you in September.

From strangers to besties: It all started with the ice-breaking games of freshman orientation. (Photo by Aaron Raymond’18)

Cars from 47 states waited in line at Park Lot on a brght and sunny Move-In Day, heading to various dorms. (Photo by Jim Mandelaro)

On Sept. 11, UR and RIT NROTC midshipmen held a vigil at the Eastman Quad honoring those killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks. From left to right are RIT’s Tim Cooper ’16, UR’s Jenna Becerra ’17 and RIT’s Joe Kren ’18. (Photo by J. Adam Fenster)

Members of the UR community showed up on a solemn Sunday night in November to pray for those killed in the Paris terrorist attacks (Photo by Aaron Raymond ’18).

On Nov. 20, around 150 students marched peacefully through the River Campus demanding more concern about racial issues from the administration. (Photo by Matt Mann)

Huskies came and visited students again during this year’s Winterfest. Adil Ali ’18 and Lily Guo ’18 had a wonderful dog day afternoon. (Photo by Aaron Raymond’18)

It was the shot ‘heard round the world for UR men’s basketball: Sam Borst-Smith ’18 won the State Farm Assist of the Year award after he intentionally missed a free throw and passed to Mack Montague ’18 (No. 10,) to beat Chicago in overtime. (Photo by UR Athletics).

Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League and former mayor of New Orleans, was interviewed at Douglass Leadership House before delivering the University’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Address on Feb. 29. (Photo by J. Adam Fenster)

Professor emeritus Dr. Frederick Jefferson received the Frederick Douglass Medal from vice president Paul Burgett, right, and University of Rochester president Joel Seligman during the annual Diversity Conference. (Photo by J. Adam Fenster)

The squash team reached the national championship before losing to Yale. It was UR’s best season ever. (Photo by Susan Kost)

Student volunteers gave away T-shirts, buttons, and stickers in Wilson Commons for the “We’re better than THAT” campaign, celebrating the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. (Photo by Brandon Vick)

Jaspreet Kaur’19 and Maggie Curran’19 were having so much fun on Dandelion Day, they decided a selfie was in order. (Photo by J. Adam Fenster)

University dean/vice president Paul Burgett led a rendition of UR’s alma mater, The Genesee, at the annual Student Life Awards, aka “The Rockys.” Nineteen individuals and four groups were honored in a lavish ceremony in the May Room. (Photo by Keith Bullis).

In a few weeks, I’m going to start experiencing some big changes. During the past four years, I’ve gotten pretty used to my way of life. Go to class, take care of my assignments, play lots of tennis, eat well, and get enough sleep.

It’s not always that simple, but overall, it’s been a pretty nice life, one with which I’ve gotten very comfortable and familiar. For better or worse, though, my college lifestyle is about to end as i head toward graduation on May 15.

What’s next? I don’t even know for sure. But what is for sure is that leaving Rochester will be an emotional moment, as it clearly marks the end of one stage of my life and the beginning of the next.

Since this is a blog post, and not a book, I’ll refrain from going too far into what these past four years have been like for me. While the details vary from person to person, I know I’m not the only graduating senior who can accurately characterize their time at UR by saying that there were some great times, some tough times, and that in the end it was a positive experience.

It might be a bit cliche, but there’s a reason for that. See, one thing I realized early on in college is that while you’re not a kid living at home anymore, and you’re not an adult making a living yet, you’re still experiencing life just as much as anyone else. The challenges you face, and how you deal with them, are just as valid now as at any other point in life. So while I’m lucky that I haven’t yet had to worry about many “real world” problems, I have plenty of confidence that I’ll be able to deal with the challenges ahead, just like I’ve managed to do with whatever has come my way here at UR.

Even in the dead of winter, this campus always produced some beautiful moments.

During these final few weeks, I’ve been doing some thinking about what I’ll miss most about this place. One thing that I don’t think I’ve fully appreciated is the quality of people around here. First and foremost, it’s been a pleasure to be around my fellow students. Not everyone has things in common, and I probably only know a small fraction of the students, but with pretty much no exceptions, everyone I’ve encountered has been nice, thoughtful, and genuinely easy to get along with.

I think about how many times professors have made the dreaded announcement to discuss something with the person sitting next to you. Were these conversations with strangers awkward? Sometimes, yes (especially if someone—never me, of course—hadn’t been paying attention.) But after going through this countless times, it’s really stuck out to me how congenial and relatively pleasant these interactions were. Maybe I’m looking too far into this small thing, but in my eyes it’s a great indicator of what a solid group of people I’ve been able to call my peers.

It’s not just the students that have left an impact on me, though. I probably shouldn’t lump so many others into one group, but I’m going to do it anyway and say that I’ve appreciated pretty much everyone else around here, too. Professors, administrators, coaches, food service and facilities workers, and librarians are just some of the folks that I’ll remember fondly. Many times I would find myself in a conversation with someone, telling them about my day and hearing about theirs. Rarely did it go beyond that, but, simply put, the humaneness of those who live and work on this campus made it a special place for me, and that’s one of the things I’ll certainly miss the most.

During this time of transition in my life, when I’m not looking back on the past, I’m often thinking about the future. For a while now I’ve faced the classic “what are your plans after college?” question, and like any soon-to-be grad, answering is a breeze at this point, even though I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing. I usually tell people what I think they’ll want to hear. How I might get a job doing something related to my major, or that I might go to grad school, both of which are possible, but not necessarily likely. I rarely say the more accurate and honest response about my plans, which is that I don’t really know, but I can guarantee it’ll be something I love doing. For me, more important than money, prestige, or what other people will think, I know that my top priority is that I’m doing something that gets me out of bed in the morning, something I truly enjoy.

While my college tennis playing career is over, I’m certain the sport will continue to be a big part of my life moving forward.

When I think about what it is that falls into this description, there’s really only one thing that fits the bill right now. If you know me at all, or probably even if you’ve ever had a conversation with me, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it’s tennis that really gets my wheels turning. I’ve always loved tennis, but playing on the team here at UR and dedicating a big part of my life to the sport has made me realize that I want it to continue to be one of the biggest parts of my life moving forward.

For a while, it bothered me that when I told people this, they gave me a look and sometimes even openly questioned why I wasn’t pursuing a “real job.” Now, however, I am unfazed by how others perceive my hopes and goals for the future. At UR, I think a big reason why I’m leaving with the feeling that it was a successful four years is because I lived by the belief that you always need to focus on doing things you enjoy as much as you can. This approach to life served me well in college, and I have no doubt that sticking with it and seeing where it leads me is the right play moving forward.

It’s difficult to put into words any real description of my experience at UR. It’s a bit like trying to answer the question, “What has your life been like for the last four years?” Despite the complexity of it all, there are certain things that stick out in my mind as graduation day nears. First, I’ve learned a ton here—a lot in my classes, but even more outside of them. Second, I’ve had some of the best times of my life in Rochester, moments I’ll never forget and always look back on fondly. I’ve also had some real challenges along the way, where I struggled and was down. Through it all, however, I leave UR with a sincere gratitude for everything these past four years, and for everyone that played a part in it.

Ben Shapiro ’16 is an English major from Scarsdale, New York. He recently was named Phi Beta Kappa and has served as president of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee. He has written for The Buzz, the Campus Times and Messenger Post Media in Canandaigua.

Nina Bose ’18 says she was, “shocked, honestly” when she was named Outstanding Delegate at the recent Model UN competition at Penn State.

This was her first collegiate Model UN competition. She participated in several during high school and says the college level competitions are more fun because “collegiate Model UN is more crisis oriented, which means you, as an individual, can have quite an impact on how the committee and discussion moves forward.”

Out of the eight committees contestants were divided into, Bose was part of the Press Corps and says that at the end of every committee session she found herself impressed.

“I’d marvel at the creativity of the other delegates in the Press Corps after hearing about the various ways the they influenced the committees they were observing,” she says.

The student named Best Delegate, the highest Model UN honor, held a joint press conference for two nations going to war and another made a delegate in the committee they were covering run for office by creating a false campaign for them.

Nina Bose

“I, on the other hand, mostly stuck to simply reporting what was taking place in the committees without necessarily affecting them directly,” Bose says. “I certainly was not expecting to win an award. I suppose the chair liked my writing and thought I was doing a decent job. I won’t complain!”

Bose says that most of the other contestants were studying something in the field of Social Sciences, while she is a Computer Science major.

“It was great meeting people from different universities and backgrounds,” she says. “It was interesting to talk to people about the different experiences they have had in college.”

She was also amazed at what some of the other contestants came up with for their committees.

“Some people are so incredibly creative!” she says.

Bose says that getting the award for Outstanding Delegate was “a morale booster. I feel ready to dive back into school, now, having taken a little break from Computer Science for the conference.”

She isn’t sure what the future holds but will keep an eye out for various opportunities that lead to new experiencves. Model UN definitely fits that bill.

Bose wasn’t the only Rochester student recognized at the competition, however. Sean Wang ’16, was named an honorable mention by the chair.

Recently, Entin and Gulston won the award of Greek Leaders of Distinction by the Northeast Greek Leadership Association. The award is given to individuals who are great models in their campus Greek communities with consideration of leadership, service to the University, sorority and fraternity, interest, ability and achievement in scholastic activities.

As an optical engineering major, Entin never thought about joining a sorority her freshmen year.

“I came to school with a really anti-Greek attitude,” she said.

Amy Entin is the president of Multicultural Greek Council.

However, she found that a lot of her friends had a really fun time in Greek life, so she decided to give it a try. She went to the rush events and met the sisters at different sororities but didn’t find one that really fit her personality. When she was about to give up, she came across a flyer in her dorm hall saying that Delta Phi Omega Sorority would hold their informational session that afternoon.

“It doesn’t hurt to try, so I went,” she said.

After talking to all the sisters, she decided that this was the group she wanted to join. Entin eventually started her Greek journey at the end of her sophomore year. Because of the small size of the sorority, Entin has taken many different chair positions over the past two years.

“Alumni Relations is my favorite because I get the chance to talk to all of our alums,” she said. “We plan all sorts of our Meliora events as well.”

When alumni come back to visit, Entin is the one who figures out their accommodations, activities like FSA (Fraternities and Sororities Association) Tailgate and all other expenses. Besides all the fun activities, group study is very important to DPO girls. Many of their alumni go to graduate school afterward, and some are applying for medical school. The excellence in academic achievement stressed by DPO is what Entin is most proud of and holds dear.

“Joining a Greek organization really brings up my better qualities,” Entin said. “It does not fundamentally change my personality, but I learn to be more responsible and confident in doing things.”

Because of her impressive leadership roles in Delta Phi Omega, Entin later joined Multicultural Greek Council as the publicity chair at first, and later became the president. Managing MGC is very different from taking chair positions in her own sorority. Since reliability is always stressed by DPO sorority, Entin knows that whenever she sent out emails to the sisters, she will hear back from them within 24 hours with the exact things she asks. However, the response rate at MGC is not as good.

Entin realizes that the whole MGC is struggling on campus in terms of membership, cultural awareness and regulations set by the FSA committee. Seeing all those struggling, Entin is always trying to make their voice heard in a bigger Greek community on campus by providing support to other MGC organizations.

One of the difficulties for Entin as a president is to try to figure out the needs of her council. She recalled one time when she was given short notice to meet president Joel Seligman and was put in the situation of making an on-the-spot decision.

“I don’t know if I represent my council well because I don’t meet my council beforehand and get the idea of what they want,” she said.

Currently Entin thinks that anything that promotes diversity is good for MGC in general. She also mentions that a lot of the regulations on campus affect organizations in MGC. For example, the party rules of Douglass are always geared toward a group of 50 people instead of five.

Over the past two years, Entin has seen the school change and grow in terms of Greek life. She witnessed the change of the insurance policy that FSA mandates the fraternities have, and sees people plan Dandelion Day. Having a seat at the table and helping her multicultural Greek group grow in general make Entin feel worthwhile in joining the Greek community.

Michael Gulston gave a speech sharing his Greek life experience at the FSA Achievement Reception.

Similar to Entin, Gulston came to college with an anti-Greek attitude.

“I guess I misjudged the Greek life,” Gulston said.

When the spring semester came his freshman year, Gulston rushed Sigma Beta Rho since he already knew some of the brothers there. Besides that, he was fascinated about the unique culture they represent as a Greek organization. When he was in middle school, Gulston spent a month in Thailand. He was very interested about a different culture from where he grew up.

As an active member of Sigrho since Spring 2013, he has served as the fraternity’s cultural chair, treasurer, and philanthropy chair. He ultimately became the president of his fraternity and tried to achieve his goal of removing the stigma that Greek life is all about partying.

“Sororities usually have philanthropic goals and a lot of community service activities, and I think fraternities should do the same,” he said. “Usually, there’s not much going on except parties in fall semester. We should do more in the fall so that we can project a positive image for recruitment the next semester.”

Passionate about cross-cultural communication, Gulston planned a cultural event called Fusion, showcasing different cultural organizations on campus. With the funding and grants, Gulston is able to hold the events big enough to get both Greek and non-Greek organizations involved.

Ten to 15 different student organizations participated in the event. Each organization is responsible for sharing their cultures and customs with others. They also invited performance groups such as Celtic, Korean Percussion Group, and the YellowJackets to add color to the culture mixer. Sigrho also won the multicultural initiative award because of this.

Hoping to see his fraternity to be a strong voice for social justice, diversity, and inclusion within the larger Interfraternity community, Gulston has led his fraternity to make the smooth transition from the Multicultural Greek Council to our Interfraternity Council. Though he met some opposition during the process, he finally convinced his brothers that it would be a great opportunity for them to transit to IFC, so that they would be exposed to a bigger brotherhood and represent their culture in a more visible fashion.

“A lot of the brothers are for the move, and a handful of the brothers are skeptical,” he said. “They are worried about their multicultural identity. I talked to our national organization and IFC Sigrho in other schools, and we got very positive opinions from them.”

With all the support and downside he kept in mind, Sigrho finally moved from MGC to IFC. As for cultural events programming, nothing really changes. They still show up in the annual Skate Party to fulfill their community service goal.

Within the community, Gulston is also an active member in Order of Omega, an honor society representing the top 3 percent of fraternity and sorority leaders on campus in the areas of service, leadership, and scholarship.

Five years ago, Kedar Shashidhar ’15 had no clue what he would be doing after graduation. Since then, he has founded his own indie game studio and become an entrepreneur.

Why only focus on sound, when video games are all the rage?

“That’s never really been done before.” said Shashidhar, who is in the KEY program after graduating last spring. “I want to create a pure compelling experience that can be even deeper without any visual assistance.”

Since pure audio games are rare in the game industry, Shashidhar thinks it is worth trying out. The audio and music engineering major and his team of 12 named their studio Blackout Games, and aim to get a wide demographic involved—visually impaired, mid-core gamers and more. All the ambient sound and effects are based on the narrative story, and gamers will be actively involved in this immersive environment.

The idea of making an audio game was inspired by his senior design project. With experience interning in the audio industry after his junior year, he was confident that he was well-prepared for the senior design. Back to school, he bumped into David Porter, who is also Audio and Music Engineering major, planning on his senior project.

“You want to make something?” Porter asked.

Kedar Shashidhar testing a level prototype.

They put their heads together and shared a lot of information about the audio game industry. Not seeing so many well-designed audio games in the current market, they were determined to make one themselves and committed to their one-year senior design based on that.

As the first class of students in AME majors, Professor Mark Bocko from the Electrical and Computer Engineering department, was incredibly supportive and provided all relevant resources to help the students with their senior design projects. He suggested that they attend game developer conferences in order to understand what’s going on about audio game industry. With the help of Professor Bocko, they kept improving their senior project and started to think it might be possible to turn it into a startup business.

“Alright,,” they asked each other. “Are we going to continue to do this for another year? Is it gonna be a thing?”

Since graduation was drawing near, Shashidhar had a serious talk with his team. If they really wanted to turn it into a startup business instead of finishing it up as a senior project, they had a lot more to learn.

Porter was the first to say “yes”. With support from his teammates, Shashidhar started to draft the business plan and applied for the KEY program. Obviously, transferring a creative idea into a serious business not only requires a clear vision but also trivial work from attention to detail. They went through a very formal recruiting process and got their writers on board.

By the end of May 2015, they finally finished assembling the team and refined their concept of the audio game. On top of that, they also won third place in the Charles and Janet Forbes Competition, a technical business idea contest for undergraduates. This gave them the initial funding of $500 to start the business. They spent the entire summer doing pre-production like game design, prototyping and other initial work.

They went back to school with solid technical skills and knowledge, working hard on the production with high efficiency. Currently, they have a programming team, a writing team, a sound team, an individual graphic designer, an individual composer and a QA tester—a total of 12 students.

One of the difficulties they met is the lack of resources of audio game information at school.

“We have sound design, recording and other relevant courses in audio and music, but not much details were covered in its application in the game industry,” Shashidhar said.

Kedar Shashidhar talks to his teammates about the current progress of their project.

Luckily, as KEY program members, Shashidhar had two entrepreneur advisors. Professor Bocko connected them to people working in the professional game industry. One of the advisors working for Telltale Games and Pixar has a lot of experience in writing and helped them through the creative process.

Since none of the entrepreneur advisors live in Rochester, communication was challenging.

“We kind of live on Google Hangouts.” Shashidhar said with a laugh. “We are all over the place. Our creative advisors live on the West Coast. Our composer lives in Connecticut, and our graphic designer lives in Richmond.”

Though distance communication made things a bit difficult, they still kept up good work in multiple aspects. They analyzed the 3D geometry in the computer to figure out how the sound physically acts in the space.

“A wood material with this kind of shape may have this kind of sound reflection.” Shashidhar explained.

They are trying to get the sound physically accurate so that the audio experience sounds real and vivid for the gamers.

As for the cost, Shashidhar says it is really lucky that it doesn’t cost much to make a software.

“You can technically build the game for free,” he said. “The only cost we have is the licensing fee of tools that we use to make the game when it comes out. This is set up by the game industry.”

The future plan for Blackout Games is clear. They plan to do a testing in an open house soon, and release the game in late spring.

“The game is sure to be on Steam, and will be later available in the App store because we need to design the mobile portal as well,” Shashidhar said.

As for the sustainable development for the company, Shashidhar is quite positive as well.

“If we can sustain ourselves off this game, then we will just continue to make more games,” he said. “We will also provide audio services for other indie game companies who make virtual reality.”

Even if the project does not turn out well, he still regards it as a great learning experience.

“There’s always room for us to grow individually,” Shashidhar said.

]]>UR cheerleaders get a taste of life at college nationalshttp://www.rochester.edu/thebuzz/2016/04/ur-cheerleaders-get-a-taste-of-life-at-college-nationals/
Mon, 04 Apr 2016 16:57:32 +0000http://www.rochester.edu/thebuzz/?p=56332

Joy Bian’17
University Communications

After years of practice and preparation, the UR cheerleading squad finally advanced to the “Reach the Beach” national championships last weekend in Ocean City, Maryland.

They didn’t win it. In fact, they weren’t scored. But the weekend was a huge success for an up-and-coming program.

“We did an exhibition this year, which means we performed but were not scored,” head coach Anna Rogers says. “Since this is the first time we’ve gone to nationals in 14 years, we wanted to get feedback from judges without having the pressure to place.”

And next year?

“Next year, our goal is to compete and place in the top three!” Rogers says.

Rogers has been involved in cheerleading for more than 13 years and is excited about her program, which includes 14 females. It’s solely a competitive cheer team and does not cheer for University teams such as football and basketball.

Practice makes perfect: The UR cheerleaders hard at work at the Lou Alexander Palestra.

“The team has been practicing so hard since September,” Rogers says. “All they wanted to do is to compete in the nationals.”

This is Roger’s fourth year coaching at the University of Rochester. She has witnessed the team growing year after year.

“When I started coaching, the team wasn’t even doing college-level stunts,” she says. “I am very glad to see the progress we made in the past four years.”

Porter-Monroe used to play softball in high school but had no cheerleading experience when she joined the team as a freshman.

“Although Tay had never done cheerleading before, she has very strong leg muscles due to her softball training,” Roger says, “This helps her to master the skills really quickly.”

Monroe is not only a hard-working athlete herself, but an amazing mentor for younger students on the team.

The cheerleading team usually practices two nights a week—Monday and Wednesday from 8:30-10:30 p.m. plus an hour tumbling class for the third night.

“We rent out an All-star gym, Core Athletix, for training and I coach the regular practices,” Rogers says.

Head coach Anna Rogers.

Because of her personal injury experience, Rogers puts safety as her top priority.

“Doing tumbling training for more than an hour actually hurts your joints,” she says.

Although Rogers was an all-star level high school coach, she still ran into difficulties when she started to coach at the University of Rochester. A broad spectrum of skills on the team makes it difficult to keep everyone on the same page and go through the same training sessions.

“We have people who have never cheered their entire lives when they join the team,” Rogers says. “What they have to learn is the elementary school level, and we have to make sure they build up their skills quickly and safely. In the meantime, we also have people who cheered for four years at high school.”

What Rogers does is mix the group and let the older ones lead a few inexperienced people.

The UR cheerleaders have varying degrees of skills.

They usually go through all the training sessions in the fall and start competition in the spring. All the team members have the opportunity to touch base on or recap the basics in spring so that it helps them to build up their skills.

“You cannot move on to the second skill unless you master the first,” Rogers says.

She admits that it is hard at the beginning, especially when people have such huge gaps in terms of abilities and skills. However, since it is a team sport, she has to make sure everyone is at the same level.

“If one person is gone, you can’t lift or stunt,” she says.

Rogers is very pleased to see everyone on the team is so close.

Yukako Ito ’17, a computer science majoring, is the quintessential team member. She tore her ACL her freshman year but still came to every practice with a full leg cast, just sitting and watching.

It wasn’t until November of her sophomore year that she returned to the team for training and competition.

The inspiration came from a brave teen-aged girl. A University of Rochester singing group took it from there.

The YellowJackets, perhaps UR’s best-known a cappella group, will hold their annual spring concert on Saturday, April 2, at Strong Auditorium. Another benefit concert will take place three weeks later at Fairport High School, about 20 minutes east of the River Campus.

They started this fight against cancer after the death of Hannah Metzler, the beloved younger sister of YellowJackets singer Luke Metzler ’16. Hannah died of brain cancer two years ago.

Hannah attended Fairport High and was actively involved in various campus activities—drama, choir, field hockey and more.

In the autumn of 2012, she began to experience dizzy spells at school. One time, she became dizzy when she served as goalie on the field hockey team. Not long after, she experienced a fainting spell in chemistry class. Her parents weren’t overly concerned at the beginning.

“We thought it might be that she wasn’t eating properly at breakfast or lunch,” says her dad, Mike.

However, things became worse when Hannah’s handwriting began to suffer.

Through magnetic resonance imaging, doctors discovered a brain tumor in Hannah’s lower right cerebellum, which was the root of her dizzy spells. She went through an immediate surgery and was given chemotherapy and radiation treatments throughout the fall. However, her illness returned in the summer of 2013. Although her family explored different clinical trials, none of the treatment worked effectively.

On March 27, 2014, Hannah died.

Hannah’s field hockey teammates wish her well.

She was such a caring and generous young woman that she had decided to donate her organs to those in need and her body to scientific research. Although the autopsy showed that the tumor had spread through her brain stem and her body could not be used for medical research, she was able to give her corneas to a deserving recipient. Besides that, the samples of her brain tissue were provided to researchers in hopes of helping someone else in the future.

Inspired by Hannah’s spirit, the Metzler family founded the Hannah Metzler Memorial Fund, continuing to support cancer-related causes and other important endeavors that Hannah valued.

The Crush Cancer concerts is one of them.

During Hannah’s first stay in the hospital, Luke brought the YellowJackets to the hospital to serenade her. Hearing the beautiful songs, Hannah wanted to spread that encouragement and comfort to all kids in hospital. At her request, they serenaded the entire wing of sick children.

In order to make an impact on a larger cancer community, Hannah was planning something bigger than that. Therefore, Hannah’s Crush Cancer Concert was born. Luke helped her plan the concert, aiming to raise money for fighting cancer and helping people who are going through the same suffering.

Hannah’s Fairport Family comes together to Crush Cancer.

The first concert in 2013 at Fairport High raised more than $18,000, and the second concert, in the wake of Hannah’s death, raised more than $30,000. Ever since the second concert, Hannah’s legacy of generosity has passed on. Each year the Metzler family holds a benefit concert at Fairport High School Auditorium to celebrate her giving spirit.

This year’s concert is on April 23. Tickets are $10 for students and $15 for adults and will be available at Wegmans in early April. The Bill Tiberio Band will be performing in addition to the Yellowjackets, and there will be a few other acts as well. Doors will open at 1 p.m. and there will be lots of raffle and silent auction items to bid on.

Before that, the YellowJackets are planning something special as well. They invited the fantastic Tufts Beezlebubs to join them at this year’s spring concert. These gentlemen were runners-up on the first season of NBC’s The Sing-Off and also arranged and recorded the songs of the Warblers on the television show Glee. The YellowJackets themselves will perform some awesome covers of artists such as A Great Big World, Bruno Mars, and Justin Bieber.

Tickets are $7 for undergraduates, $10 for graduates/faculty/staff and $15 for general admission. All of the tickets can be purchased at Commons Market at Wilson Commons, and all sales go to the Hannah Metzler Fund.

For more information on the Cancer Crush Concert and the fund, please check here.

To commemorate his sister, Luke Metzler wrote a song called In the Springtime.

For many college-age women, the idea of birth and pregnancy is a remote concept to be thought of much further down along the line. But for SeQuoia Kemp ’16, the labor room is like a second home.

The Health, Behavior and Society major is a doula, a birthing coach who helps women in labor have an easier and less stressful birth experience. Kemp says that she has known she wanted to be an obstetrician ever since she was young. At 14, she witnessed her first birth, that of a family friend, and says that it changed her life.

“I just love being in the room and being able to help women, but at that point I just recorded it,” she says. “Prior to my training, I’d see a person was pregnant and say, ‘Oh, can I assist?'”

Kemp wasn’t aware there were such things as a doula before taking a public health class her freshman year that touched upon the topic. She became intrigued by the idea and did some of her own research. Then, the summer after her freshman year, her pastor posted on her church’s Facebook page that there was a scholarship for doula training available if anyone was interested.

Another success story for UR’s resident doula.

“I was like, ‘I already do this, so why don’t I just get trained and do this for a living?'” she says.

She applied immediately to the program through Doula Training International and was awarded the scholarship for a five-day course that grants a life-long doula certification.

“I got trained for free and got hooked and have just been developing my skills[ever since] and it’s just been amazing,” she says.

The most important aspect of the job, she says,is “setting an atmosphere,” and knowing how to empower the mothers in the delivery room. There are many different forms this takes, whether it’s leading the mother through breathing exercises, playing music in the room to relax them, or rocking along with them when a contraction hits.

“If I do feel that my client is not being treated in [the right] way, I will try and set the atmosphere [in the room] in a way where the client feels empowered to speak up for herself, rather than just me speaking for her directly to the doctor,” she says.

Kemp doesn’t work with one doctor specifically, but has her own business, which she runs through a Facebook page. Clients find her contact information on the page or hear about her by word of mouth.

This past summer, she worked with a federal program running in her hometown of Syracuse called Syracuse Healthy Start. She was placed with mothers through this program at varying stages in their pregnancies and would help coach them through their births.

She has never had any serious problems with the doctors or midwives delivering her clients children having her present and says that “most doctors are completely fine with me being in the room,” although sometimes issues do arise unexpectedly.

“You want to be able to conduct yourself in away that the doctor doesn’t think you’re over stepping their boundaries,” she says, “but you’re also an advocate for that mother.

“Sometimes when you go into the labor room, the doctor you’ve been working with isn’t always going to be the one delivering your baby and I had one woman who wanted to do a VBAC, a virginal birth after C section, and the doctor she had been working with wasn’t on call when she went into labor. So she was all set to have this vaginal birth, but the other doctor on call was like ‘No, we’re gonna sign you up for a C-section, you know, there’s all these risks,’ and he was just really negative towards my client and my client was like, ‘ You know, I really want to have this vaginal birth.”’

Kemp says that’s when she has to speak up.

“You have to go in and speak to your client and say, ‘What would you like, what do you want, how are you feeling?’ so that way the doctor is seeing that my client is uncomfortable with the way she is being treated and most professional people with see, notice and back off or reassess how they are acting.”

Kemp will sometimes begin working with a woman as early as her first trimester and says that, on several occasions, she has been the first to learn of a woman’s pregnancy. She likes starting early with her clients because, “every time we talk and meet there’s a trust that builds and she’s more willing to trust my voice when she’s in labor.”

She says that mothers she starts working with later still trust her, but not to the same extent and she has to “work, really, extra hard to empower them, because, you know, (they’re) in labor and not thinking straight all the time.”

And baby makes 3: Kemp with a baby she helped deliver and the baby’s mother.

When asked what her most memorable birth was, Kemp cites one she helped with before she was certified.

“This was the first birth where my cousin was like, ‘ No, I want you in there,’ so to be requested just made me feel really good.”

Her cousin gave birth without any medication and Kemp says this was the moment when she realized how effective the alternative techniques can be.

“I was just like, ‘This really works, it really does.’ Every labor is different, but it’s the same at the same time, so you learn new techniques and at the time that she had her baby, I wasn’t trained, but I did more research… so I was like ‘Oh, we can have music in the labor room.’ We had jazz playing, we were swaying. Even though I wasn’t trained, I was using knowledge that I had gained on my own and so that was really empowering to see that I just did a little research and I applied it and it worked!”

Kemp doesn’t currently have any clients but says that the closeness of Strong and Highland hospitals are a huge asset to her business and allow her to take on clients while at school. She says that she even took Safe Ride to the hospital to attend a birth once.

Aside from her studies and work as doula, Kemp has an extracurricular involvement list a mile long. She is the Lead Oracle of No Disclaimers, UR’s slam poetry group, President of the Black Student Union and works at Blimpies. She also interns at the Healthy Baby Network, a nonprofit that works with women, mostly of lower socioeconomic status, providing them with prenatal care and connecting them to resources to counteract the high mortality rates prevalent in lower income communities. She hopes to continue her business as a doula after she graduates.

“I’m the type of person that, the more I’m involved in, the more I do well in academics, the more I feel empowered to, you know, make sure I’m giving the best to the people I’m working with,” she says.

Kemp and a client before her delivery

Even though she has helped out with many births, Kemp still gets excited and nervous when she gets the call letting her know her client is in labor.

“I just feel so honored that they will allow me to come at such a sacred moment,” she says. “I just love it so much.”

She makes sure to keep in contact with her clients and often gets invited to the children she saw in their first moments of life’s birthday parties or gets tagged in their mother’s posts on Facebook.

“It’s just an amazing feeling to see these kids at 1 and 2 and 3 and look at them and think, ‘ I was there, I was there when you were born.'”

]]>Trading in the UR gear for the stars and stripes of Team USAhttp://www.rochester.edu/thebuzz/2016/03/trading-in-the-ur-gear-for-the-stars-and-stripes-of-team-usa/
Mon, 14 Mar 2016 15:06:41 +0000http://www.rochester.edu/thebuzz/?p=54012By Ben Shapiro ’16University Communications

Athletes at the University of Rochester take a lot of pride in representing our school when they compete, and having the opportunity to represent the entire university can be very inspiring.

For Shira Katz ’18, playing volleyball for the Yellowjackets opened the door to play for something even bigger: her country.

Shira Katz shows off the hardware she brought back from Chile

Shira, who hails from New Albany, Ohio, traveled to Santiago, Chile in December to compete in the Maccabi Pan American Games, an Olympic-style event in which countries from North and South America send some of their best athletes with Jewish roots to compete in various sports.

“It was really cool to sport U.S. gear all the time and feel proud about it,” Katz says.

The process of making the U.S. women’s volleyball team started last fall, when Katz’s coach at UR, Ladi Iya, received an email from the Maccabi coach, asking if Katz was interested. Katz thought the idea sounded exciting but doubted it would ever actually happen. The seemingly far-flung opportunity became more realistic when the U.S. coach attended one of UR’s games and told the sophomore she’d fit in well on his squad.

Katz (No. 5) and the rest of Team USA Volleyball in Chile.

After the fall semester came to a close, Katz headed to Brooklyn for a two-day training camp with her new teammates before flying to South America. Despite only vaguely knowing one other teammate—a player from Brandeis University, which plays in the same conference as UR—the squad had instant chemistry.

“I just loved my team,” Katz says. “Some of them will be lifelong friends for sure. Our personalities clicked so well. It was by chance, by luck.”

Although some of the countries they faced were made up of teams that have been competing together for quite some time, what the U.S. lacked in experience it clearly made up for in chemistry. In the preliminary rounds, Team USA beat Peru and two different Chilean teams, enabling it to advance to the medal round.

Katz shows off her silver medal.

The gold medal match against Brazil turned out to be one of Katz’s favorite memories of the trip, even if the final result was a Brazilian victory in five sets.

“We lost, but it was a really good match.” she says, adding that she thought experience played a role in the final outcome. “They were a very seasoned team, and we had only been together for two days before the competition.”

Just as at UR, the intensity was high, though there were some major differences between Maccabi Pan American and NCAA Division III volleyball. The teams in Chile were made up of players aged 18-35, and while the U.S. team was predominantly college players like Katz, other countries had rosters with older players in their late 20s and 30s.

“Some of them weren’t jumping as high, but they were all very smart,” Katz says.

Along with the gold-medal match, Katz’s other favorite part of the trip was the opening ceremony. Much like the Olympics, the athletes paraded into a stadium country by country in alphabetical order, greeted by thousands of friends, family members, and fans.

“We were waiting outside for a while, because we’re the United States, so it was near the end of the alphabet,” Katz recalls. “But finally we heard the ‘USA’ chant and we walked in, and there were lights everywhere. It was a stadium full of people, and all the countries on the field. It was really sweet.”

There was plenty of red, white, and blue on display at the opening ceremony in Chile.

The opening ceremony also gave the athletes a chance to mingle. Katz ended up talking to a couple of players from the U.S. rugby team, and the next thing she knew, the rugby players, whom she described as “massive” had—in a friendly manner—lifted her up onto their shoulders, a move that is actually common in rugby matches. Experiences like this seemed to define the Games for Katz, as it’s not everyday you get hoisted up by two fellow athletes as you walk into a stadium, representing your country.

After the Games came to a close, in addition to the memories, Katz also found herself with some new lifelong friends.

“This team was super close,” she says. “In a week and a half I felt like some of them were my sisters, that’s how close we were.”

Team USA Volleyball making the most of a photo op in Santiago

Competing on the Maccabi USA team was not necessarily a one-time deal for Shira. In the summer of 2017, the World Maccabi Games are scheduled to be held in Israel, where every country brings the best they have for the world’s premier competition of Jewish athletes.

And while the U.S. roster is far from set, Katz said she would love to be able to represent her country again, this time on an even bigger stage.

“Israel is when everyone brings everyone that they’ve got,” she says. “Because the Pan Am games are a big deal, but Israel is the main event,”

Rest easy, Yellowjackets: Order has been restored to the basketball universe. UR not only made the NCAA Tournament this season, the team’s quest for a national championship is still very much alive after postseason wins over Johnson & Wales University and Stockton University last weekend.

How sweet it is.

UR (22-5) plays Bowdoin College of Maine (22-6) in a Sweet 16 matchup Friday at 5 p.m. at Amherst, Mass. Host Amherst, ranked fourth nationally at 28-1, will face New Jersey-based Stevens Institute of Technology (23-6) in the nightcap. The winners will meet Saturday night with a spot in the national semifinals at stake.

Making NCAAs once seemed as much a part of March as St. Patrick’s Day celebrations and melting snow. The Yellowjackets reached the Big Dance eight of nine seasons starting with the 2002-03 season. In 2003, 2004 and 2010, they advanced all the way to the Final Four.

“It became the expectation,” 17th-year coach Jim Scheible says.

Sophomore Alexandra Leslie is a multiple threat for UR and earned Co-UAA Player of the Year honors.

UR reached the NCAAs in 2012-13 but lost in the second round to Williams College. Then came two seasons without March Madness. UR went 12-13 in 2013-14, its first losing season since a 6-19 mark in Scheible’s first year at the helm (1999-2000). Last season, the Yellowjackets improved to 15-10 but still sat out the tournament.

“It was surprising to be sure,” says Tylar Guerreri, a senior forward from Our Lady of Mercy High School in Rochester. “The Yellowjackets were supposed to be in the tournament.”

They’re back in large part thanks to the sophomore class. Forward Alexandra Leslie was named the co-University Athletic Association Player of the Year from Lancaster, Pa. She led UR in scoring (15.4 points per game), rebounding (9.6), free-throw percentage (.876, which is ninth in NCAA Division III) and blocks (30).

Point guard Brynn Lauer has endured three ACL tears but keeps on motoring for UR.

Leslie is the focal point of UR’s offense, scoring more than 20 points seven times this season.

Lauren Deming, a sophomore guard from Waterloo outside of Rochester, was named to the UAA second team after averaging 11.1 points and 5.3 rebounds.

The Yellowjackets also have Sarah Kaminsky, a junior guard from Lafayette, New York, who averages 9.1 points. And Brynn Lauer, a junior point guard out of Newark, New York whose 103 assists are 48 more than anyone else on the team.

Lauer knows a thing or three about perseverance: She has endured three ACL tears in her knees, including two at the same time, and sat out her freshman season while on the mend.

If the Yellowjackets win twice this weekend, they will advance into a Twilight Zone of sorts. In almost every other year, the “Final Four” would play the next weekend on Friday evening and the winners would square off Saturday for the national championship.

But because this is the 35th anniversary of NCAA women’s basketball, the powers that be wanted all three division championships to be decided on the same site – Indianapolis.

UR would advance to the semifinals next weekend at Capital University in Ohio, but the national championship would be two weeks later – April 4.

The Yellowjackets aren’t thrilled about practicing for two weeks to play one game (who is?), but they’re willing to do it if it means they’re still alive come April.